It seemed in 2014 as though almost every high-profile novelist had a book out (Stephen King had two). Ian McEwan investigated the niceties of moral and legal judgment in “The Children Act” (Jonathan Cape), while in “The Zone of Interest” (Jonathan Cape) Martin Amis made grim comedy out of the Holocaust — though neither troubled the Man Booker judges.

Customary celebrations greeted the publication of a new Haruki Murakami, while Sarah Waters’s “The Paying Guests” (Virago) was both a subtle inquiry into shifting class and gender relations after the First World War and an operatic crime thriller. Elsewhere, Norwegian confessional novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard delved into the psychodramas of his childhood in “Boyhood Island” (Vintage), the third volume of his epic series; Rachel Cusk’s novelist narrator mediated other people’s stories in “Outline” (Faber), which playfully probed the boundaries between life and art; Colm Toíbín drew on the loss of his father at a young age for a stunning portrait of familial grief in 1960s Ireland, “Nora Webster” (Viking); and Peter Carey threaded a story of Australian political intrigue in the 1970s with present-day internet hackers in “Amnesia” (Faber).

Two giants of American fiction returned to their long-running literary projects, with Marilynne Robinson’s “Lila” (Virago) giving an outsider’s perspective on the events of Gilead and Home, and Richard Ford offering up new tales about the now ageing Frank Bascombe in “Let Me Be Frank With You” (Bloomsbury).

In the UK, Will Self’s psychiatrist anti-hero Zack Busner had another outing in “Shark” (Viking), the second volume in what is shaping up to be an extraordinary trilogy about modernism, medicine and the madnesses of the 20th century.

Howard Jacobson’s unnerving dystopia “J” (Jonathan Cape) combined a satire of contemporary culture with a nightmarish investigation into anti-semitism; and Alan Warner honed his singular talent in “Their Lips Talk of Mischief” (Faber), a black comedy of books in Thatcher’s Britain. As his feckless protagonists exclaim: “What the hell else are we going to do but become great novelists?”

Two of the most rewarding reads of the year were wrapped up in one book: Ali Smith’s “How to Be Both” (Hamish Hamilton), a novel in two sections published to be read in either order. Bringing together the effervescent narratives of an Italian Renaissance fresco painter and a modern teenager, the book explored love, art and possibility with an extraordinary freshness that won it a Booker shortlisting and the Goldsmiths prize for originality.

American Jenny Offill published a beguilingly original second novel made up of snatched moments and brief anecdotes: “Dept. of Speculation” (Granta) was an exploded portrait of parenthood, creative identity and a marriage in crisis; wistful, sad and very funny. The conceit of German novelist Jenny Erpenbeck’s “The End of Days” (Portobello) — a life lived over, again and again — is everywhere at the moment, but her treatment of life, fate and the German 20th century is startling and profound.

More mainstream pleasures were to be found in David Nicholls’ “Us” (Hodder & Stoughton), a bittersweet portrait of a declining marriage. The long-awaited followup to his bestseller “One Day”, it featured another ill-matched couple, this time a staid husband and a wilder wife, embarked on a last-chance grand tour of Europe with their teenage son.

Nick Hornby also published his first novel in five years: “Funny Girl” (Viking) was a warm recreation of the swinging 1960s and the glory days of the British sitcom. Meanwhile, debut author Jessie Burton had huge success with her tale of domestic intrigue and exquisite dolls’ houses in 17th-century Amsterdam, “The Miniaturist” (Picador).

This was the year the Man Booker prize opened up to American novelists; but the eventual winner was Tasmanian Richard Flanagan for his harrowing portrayal of life and death on the Burma Railway during the Second World War, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” (Chatto & Windus). This intense tale of the horrors experienced by PoWs forced into slave labour by the Japanese army, and the damage carried into peacetime by survivors, has become an Australian modern classic.

It was also the year that Elena Ferrante came to wider notice — though nobody knew who was behind the name. The third instalment of her Neopolitan novels, “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay” (Europa Editions), continued her raw exploration of female friendship and ambition, emotional violence and the enduring scars of the Second World War on Italian society, and Ferrante continues to guard her anonymity.

We’re still waiting for the final part of Hilary Mantel’s “Thomas Cromwell” trilogy, but a career-ranging story collection, “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher” (Fourth Estate), made a typical splash. It was a notable year for short stories: “Redeployment” (Canongate), former US marine Phil Klay’s tales of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, took a National book award in the United States, while Colin Barrett won the Guardian first book award for Young Skins (Jonathan Cape), vignettes of small-town yearning and frustration that breathed new life into the Irish short story.

Jane Gardam’s anthology “The Stories” (Little, Brown) covers three decades, and is an essential showcase for an extraordinary anatomist of magic, religion and a vanishing kind of Englishness, while American wunderkind Simon Rich is laugh-out‑loud funny in surreal stories of hipster pretensions and modern paranoia, “Spoiled Brats” (Serpent’s Tail).

Finally, two novels that combine fantastic inventiveness with depth and heart: David Mitchell’s “The Bone Clocks” (Sceptre) is his biggest, most crowd-pleasing novel yet — more cohesively linked than Cloud Atlas in following one woman’s life, set against a backdrop of a mind-bending supernatural battle between good and evil.

The story ranges from teenage angst in 1980s Essex to the collapse of western civilisation in near-future Ireland, by way of love, loss, family, war and a wicked satire on the publishing industry.

Twelve years after his Victorian epic “The Crimson Petal and the White”, Michel Faber heads for the stars with “The Book of Strange New Things” (Canongate), in which an evangelical Christian leaves a world on the brink of environmental meltdown to take God’s message — and that book of strange new things, the Bible — to aliens on a distant planet.

He sets himself the task of cultural translation across an unimaginable gulf, while trying to maintain the fragile thread of connection with his wife, light years away back on Earth. It’s a profound, constantly surprising and thought-provoking investigation into faith, love, distance and how far a human being can travel.

Guardian News & Media Ltd